Blooming Rose of Summer
by burnmeumi
Summary: The last rose of summer is now in bloom, scattered through time, the stalk of its past and future now laid bare. (Story inspired by thisvexesme's "The Summer of Ruby")
1. Prologue

Two years.

Two years spent on a single, solitary problem.

Two years and thousands upon thousands of lien spent on the equipment needed to solve a single equation.

In conversation with those curious about what the time and money was going towards, most would tell her that progressing as far as she did in understanding and solving this problem—a simple equation that governs one of the most fundamental laws of our physical universe—is nothing short of a miracle. But to Ruby Rose, hailed among her friends and her instructors as a once in a century prodigal genius of combat, strategy, and physics—two years is a sign of her inexperience and a personal failure.

" _Miss Rose, as someone who shares your interest in our physical world, I have a… question for you."_

Of course, if she were being honest, when Ozpin first asked and planted the seed into her mind Ruby didn't believe she'd ever figure it out. " _It's a question that has been asked by and boggled the minds of even the most prodigal of geniuses for millennia_ " she remembers him telling her.

" _Miss Rose… what is_ time _?"_

" _W-Well time is—"_

" _Besides its existence as a fundamental existence, miss Rose. What I mean to ask is what_ is _time, on a physical level and what is the relation between our, man's, perception of time and what effect it has on the physical world."_

Why was he asking _her_? She was only fifteen—a prodigy sure, but if even the men that identified and defined the very fundamentals of physical existence, men that studied the world for more decades even her dad's been alive, couldn't give an answer then what hope would she have? " _Perhaps I'm just a little lonely in my understanding, miss Rose_ " he told her when she asked.

" _Do_ you _know what time is, Professor Ozpin?"_

" _I do, but I want to see whether or not_ you _can figure it out, miss Rose."_

And so she dedicated much of her time, days upon days of sleepless nights per week and tonnes more lien than her dad and uncle made in a decade, on trying to solve that question. She found her way unto and equation, as most physical laws exist as, but with far too many missing variables to make it worth anything besides a sign of progress—a basic framework to show her and those that ask her that it _can be done_.

Then she pondered why Ozpin even wanted her to solve the question for herself—if he already _knows_ the answer, why ask a girl forty years his junior to solve it herself? And she realised, almost two years into her research, that it could become her magnum opus—discovering what mathematical process governs _time_ , the one fundamental physical property that, outside of the Schnees and potentially some Hunters with time based Semblances, no human or Faunus has _ever_ had any sort of control over. " _He's trying to give me my own legacy, something past being a prodigy and a Huntress who's memory will fade a few decades after my death."_

And finally, tonight, she gazes on the finished equation. Every single variable accounted for, double and triple and quadruple checked with the laws governing every other physical property to make sure the relationships match up.

Ruby Rose, seventeen year-old prodigal third year Huntress of Beacon Academy and leader of Huntress Team RWBY, stares in shock and awe at the papers and digital board in front of her—eyes bloodshot and deep black sags framing her lids from her exhaustion. "I… I think I've got it!"

"Mmmm… got what, Ruby…?"

Ruby stills slightly in surprise, not expecting to hear any voices this late at night—" _It's four in the morning!_ "—and turns her head slightly towards the door way of her lab, drinking in the sight of the figure.

Blake Belladonna stands ever naturally in the shadows of the night, the faint light of Ruby's lamps being the only source of light to illuminate Ruby's lab and show the shape of the nineteen year-old Faunus. Ruby spots the bags under Blake's eyes as well, though whether they're from extended deprivation of sleep or just a _really_ long day for her teammate and girlfriend, Ruby doesn't know.

"W-What're you doing up, kitty-cat?"

Blake shoots her a gentle glare. " _Someone_ didn't come back to the dorm… _again_ ," she explains softly, her voice as quiet and controlled as it's always been. "We were worried, Weiss and I noticed that your all-nighters have been… much more frequent the last couple of weeks."

Ruby sighs slightly, moving her attention back to her two years of work that would make the most successful of physicists amazed and jealous.

"…Hey, Blake?"

"Hmm?"

"What… what is time?"

Blake ponders her question for a few seconds, brows furrowing and a contemplative pout forming on her face. Despite it all Ruby smiles slightly—she loves it whenever Blake contemplates a question like that, adores how adorable her face looks when in that state.

"I don't… I don't know how I'd answer that in a way that would satisfy you, Rubes…" she finally answers with a slight tinge of disappointment in her voice. Ruby of course knew how Blake was going to answer, and Blake knew that. She did it all the time, asking Blake complex metaphysical/physical questions like that just to give her something to think about.

Or in this case, preface everything.

"Well… you know that thing I've been working on since our first day here at Beacon?" Ruby asks, turning fully to look at Blake and indicating at her desk and work with her hand. "Professor Ozpin asked me that same question that day—what is _time_. I was going to give him a basic answer, about its existence as a physical property of existence that man and Faunus can't really control on any kind of significant degree—sorry Weiss—but he… he stopped me."

Blake's eyes practically glow with interest and curiosity. It wasn't often that someone just _stops_ Ruby from answering a question in her prodigal fields, let alone _Ozpin_. Ruby smiled at Blake's curiosity and walked up to her, pulling her into a brief and gentle hug before leading her towards her desk.

"And that's what I've been doing for the last couple of years—trying to answer that question." Ruby moves some of her work around so Blake can get a good look at all of it—the equations, the diagrams, the theorems—the whole thing. "He wanted to see if I could figure out _what_ time is, not what time _is_. What makes time, how does our perception of it effect the world around us—it seemed… daunting." Her voice wavers slightly, remembering the nights whenever her self-doubt and anxiety reached their peak and when she'd consider giving up upon the sheer impossibility of the task before her.

"But then… when Weiss was explaining how she channels her Glyphs into time dilation, I _finally_ understood what I was looking for and I made my first actual bit of progress."

Ruby moves the sheets slightly and pulls a sheet of paper into focus for both her and Blake. "See time isn't… it's not a dimension independent of the other three—if it weren't for the physical dimensions of space, time wouldn't _exist_ ," she explains slowly. "In the most basic sense, time is the effects of the force of gravity on existing particles in the universe, the actual process of which we perceive from its effects on photons." She shifts the sheets a little more, indicating to the diagrams she drew up. "The stronger the force of gravity is on a point in space, then the more… distorted the temporal state of that point becomes. Y'know, like in the event horizon of a black hole when the force of gravity is so strong that time for an inside observer just… stops."

Checking to make sure Blake is still paying attention, Ruby smiles and gives her girlfriend a quick kiss, "As a gift for being such a good listener", before turning back to her papers. "But if we talk about the passage of time, then with that understanding of what time _is_ , it's possible to travel _through_ the passage of time by your own control by forcing time around you, and I mean you _specifically_ as the inside observer, and move at a speed exceeding the speed of light, to a point where the physical existence of time and your own relative perception of time just simply doesn't exist. And depending on what direction your momentum is, then you'll either be travelling forwards or backwards through the passage of time."

Blake looks between Ruby and the, in her opinion, impossible work laid in front of her. Her eyes are wide in shock and even her ears are standing at a point from her surprise. "Ruby you… you can't seriously believe you've figured out _time travel_ , right?" The prospect sounds unbelievable, even when knowing that Ruby is a sheer genius when it comes to physics.

"Wait wait wait!" Ruby shouts excitedly, moving over to the pile of gravity Dust crystals sitting on her counter. "I was just about to test it before you came in!"

Ruby ignores the frown on Blake's face and grabs a couple of the gravity Dust crystals, placing them in a machine Blake briefly remembers seeing in her first year when professor Peach was demonstrating the effects of overloading Dust in weapons. She points the nozzle on the device, a way of directing the effects of the Dust Blake theorises, at a small Lazy Susan on her desk. Walking back towards her desk Ruby grabs an apple off of it, lazily takes a bite, and places it on the turntable.

"Theoretically," Ruby says, "if I activate this machine it'll transmit the effects of six gravity Dust crystals, loaded with some of Jaune's Aura, onto that Lazy Susan effectively stopping time for anything _on_ it because of the immense amount of pressure the gravity is placing on it—and if I pull the apple backwards using my Semblance to force the momentum to exceed lightspeed, then the apple should travel _back_ in time to before it was eaten."

Ruby giggles a little at Blake's sceptical brow and idly powers on the machine. "Maybe if I accidentally pull it back too much then we'll see it as a seed."

And Blake watches, astounded, as a purple beam of energy shoots from the machine at the apple and Ruby lazily places her hand on the fruit, giving a slight but sharp tug on the object. To Blake's shock and Ruby's pleasure, the two are staring at a fresh apple—not a single bite mark on it, and probably even more fresh than when Ruby bought it.

"M… My Gods…" Blake whispers in awe, while Ruby next to her pumps her fists into the air with a silent cheer.

"It worked! I was right!" Finally, after generations of physicists and two years of Ruby's attention, she's _finally_ figured out the answer to Ozpin's question. And not only as she answered Ozpin's question, she's figured out and invented _time travel_.

"W-What just…" Blake, on the other hand, can't fathom what she saw. _Sure_ , Blake thinks to herself, _I always considered that time travel was possible but… I wasn't expecting it to be figured out for a few more centuries at_ least.

"That, kitty-cat," Ruby responds, pulling her girlfriend into a tight and excited hug, "was the first successful instance of time travel."

Ruby looks up at her girlfriend's face and smiles brightly, albeit tiredly. "So, what do you think!?"

"I…" Blake starts dazedly, still in shock from seeing the _time travel_ but also incredibly tired, "…I think I need to go to sleep."

"I'll be right up as soon as I clean up a little! Make sure there's room in your bed for me, I'm ex _hausted_ and need to cuddle with my adorable kitty~"

Blake glares at Ruby, but both know that it's completely good natured. Blake sighs and gives her girlfriend a quick, loving kiss before turning towards the door and walking back to RWBY's dorm.

Ruby exhales tiredly, her excited grin still lighting up her face. "Welp, time to clean-up and get some rest so I can tell Ozpin in the morning."

A few minutes later, after straightening up her papers and turning off the digital display that held several of her random notes, Ruby makes her way to the Dust machine realising she forgot to turn it off after the apple experiment. As she reaches to turn the machine off though, it starts to spark and she sees the lights start to flicker.

Once Ruby touches the switch, she feels a powerful surge of electricity flow through her body and in surprise accidentally activates her Semblance, jumping backwards with so much energy flowing through her she flies through the room and slams against the door.

The last thing she hears is her shriek of pain before her vision turns black and her hearing fades, unconsciousness claiming her mind.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Summer Blooms**

* * *

…

"… _Found her in one of the… rooms, professor…"_

…

"… _And who is this Ozpin? Another… project?"_

…

" _Please Lil… I need you to trust…"_

…

"… _come back to bite us! Do not expect… y help!"_

* * *

"Well, good news professor! She's just feeling the effects of a bad concussion, and what _appears_ to be electrical backlash."

Hazel eyes glance over to one of his school's many medics, an unimpressive man whose name escapes him at the moment, before gazing back at the woman lying in the medical wing— _Ruby Rose_ , his mind reminds him. Quite honestly he should have been more prepared for the woman's arrival, he knew it was going to be happening any day now. ' _Though I do wish she came with more time before the beginning of this academic year, even if by a few days._ '

"Very well," he says to the medic, his voice as always quiet and calm. "She should be awake within the hour, please send miss Rose to my office when she wakes."

"Of course, professor Ozpin!" he hears as he turns towards the doors, grip already back on his cane and his destination ever clear in his mind.

' _Now to get things ready for miss Rose here, would not do good for a woman not even set to be born for ten more years to be walking around without any papers._ '

* * *

With a groan, shining silver eyes slowly and drearily flutter open, glancing around curiously. Where was she? The hospital wing? ' _Did I really get that damaged by the backlash? And… who brought me here, Blake? Professor Goodwitch?_ '

"Ah, you're up! You're up!" a surprisingly cheerful voice cried, silver eyes rolling looking for the origin. An enthusiastic medic, one Ruby didn't recognise, smiled brightly at her. "It seems like professor Ozpin's intuition is as strong as always, I wasn't expecting you to wake for a few more hours but the headmaster was sure you'd be up within minutes of his leaving!"

Ruby frowns slightly. "Was I really that hurt?" The medics all knew she healed fast, it was in her files because of how dense her Aura is and the simple nature of her soul.

"Erm, well…" the medic responds, glancing down at his scroll. "With how hard it looked like your head hit the wall, and how serious the concussion seemed to be… we all expected you to be out of commission for the whole day while trying to recover, even with your Aura active." He flicks his finger along the scroll a few times, cycling through was Ruby assumes to be medical documents. "But we realised your Aura is _incredibly_ dense, especially for a new student like you."

…' _Wait…_ '

"New student?"

"Hmm?" he hums, glancing back up at her. "You are one of the new students for this school year, are you not?" His voice carries no hint of humour, just sheer curiosity. Maybe he's new? Ruby's pretty sure that all the medics at Beacon know her and her team… especially Yang. "Speaking of… professor Ozpin and professor Sycamore would like to speak to you in Ozpin's office," he says, missing the look of confusion in Ruby's eyes. "Probably to ask what you were doing in a locked, unused room… and what knocked you out in it…"

The medic walks away, grumbling something about 'New students fighting and the school year hasn't even started', turning back to her briefly. "Well you're awake and no longer seem to be experiencing the effects of that concussion, and the stray electricity still in your body seems to have dissipated, so you're free to go whenever. Though if the headmaster and deputy headmistress want to see you, you should probably go to Ozpin's office ASAP."

And with his part said, the medic leaves.

' _Professor… Sycamore? Deputy headmistress? What happened to Goodwitch?_ ' Ruby thinks, quickly and quietly moving herself out of the bed, pleased to find that her cloak—her mother's white one, given to her by her dad after she outgrew her red one—was folded on a table next to where she lay, and the rest of her outfit was still on.

' _And what did he mean when he said "unused room"?_ ' she thinks, fitting her cloak around her shoulders with the cross pins and buckling her boots tight. ' _I've been using that room for my extra-curricular work for over two years now, all the staff knows that_.'

Ruby sighs and glides out of the medical wing, positive that if Ozpin wanted to see her, he'd at least be able to answer her questions. ' _Plus I can tell him that I about my progress!_ ' she inwardly cheers, a bright grin overtaking her face. ' _I'm not positive the method will work on humans, or how exactly we'd be able to regulate how far back or how far forwards you would go, or how much gravity Dust would be needed to stall time in that large an area…_ '

Ruby stops suddenly when she reaches the courtyard of Beacon, her confusion returning to her. Just yesterday all the trees were indicating the middle of autumn—the leaves changing colour as they died and fell off their branches and the air cool and crisp heralding the coming of winter. Oum, it had been _raining_ yesterday and yet…

The trees Ruby sees in the courtyard do not show any of those signs.

The leaves are a bright green, as they would be towards the end of summer in Vale, the air was warm and slightly humid, and there wasn't a single leaf on the ground of the courtyard like there should be. Ruby doesn't even see any indication that it had rained yesterday, even though it had been pouring the entire day.

Not only that, but the trees themselves seem to look… shorter, younger—and the courtyard is completely bare of students, sans the fourth-year TA. ' _It's the middle of the day on a Thursday, where are the students?_ '

"Umm… excuse me, miss? Are you alright?"

Shocked out of her thoughts, Ruby turns to look at the voice. Next to her stands a woman that Ruby, ever since the night Ozpin invited her to join Beacon two years yearly, had become very familiar with both in her appearance and the feel of her Aura.

Except here she stood, looking almost twenty years younger.

"Uh—buh—guh…!"

Glynda, or who Ruby _thinks_ is Glynda, arches an ever elegant eyebrow at her stuttering—though her eyes and face still held the worry they had a few seconds prior.,

"Do you… need help getting to the hospital wing, ma'am?"

"U-Uh… n-no, thanks for asking…?" Ruby manages to stutter out, shooting the deputy headmistress ' _That apparently isn't the deputy headmistress anymore! And is twenty years younger!_ ' a quick "sorry" as she quickly turns her attention back to the clocktower that held Ozpin's office.

' _I… no there's no way, I don't remember activating my Semblance after Blake left… an illusion? One of Em's?_ '

Ruby sighs tiredly, furrowing her left hand into her hair and ruffling it slightly. ' _No even Em's illusions can't reproduce the feel of someone's Aura…_ ' She frowns slightly, humming as she walks into the tower and up to the elevator. ' _Is it possible I'm still unconscious and dreaming, but the discharge jolted my consciousness to be active inside of my dream…?_ '

"…No, that's absurd even for me," Ruby mutters aloud, stepping into the elevator and directing it towards Ozpin's office.

Ruby spends the entire ride up to Ozpin's office listening to the calming whir of the machinery powering the elevator and her soft breathing, attempting to calm herself and clear her mind. She knows that any conversation she's going to have with professor Ozpin, a man just as mysterious after two years of constant one-on-one conversations and mission debriefings as he was the night Ruby met him, would need a clear and calm mind. If only so she could look for any deeper meanings in his words or avoid potential, subtle manipulations.

A ding announces her arrival as the door opens, the office of the headmaster looking just as it did every other time Ruby had visited, if with a few less papers than she's used to. She sees two people at Ozpin's desk, though only one of them is someone she recognises.

' _Ozpin… also looks younger…_ '

The other is someone Ruby doesn't recognise—"professor Sycamore", she assumes. And despite her apparent role at Beacon and her stance next to Ozpin, usually taken up by Goodwitch or Qrow, Ruby doesn't recognise her at all. She imagines she should have seen at least a _picture_ of the alleged deputy headmistress, the one before Glynda Goodwitch assumedly, but the sight of the woman is completely new and foreign to her.

The instant Ruby steps out of the elevator, twin sets of hazel eyes turn towards her.

"Ah, miss Rose," Ozpin starts, giving Ruby a slight welcoming smile, "glad to see you're awake, your accident last night gave you quite a bump—I was worried it might have knocked a few years of your life out of you."

Ruby's eyes narrow ever slightly, but she opts to stay quiet, letting the headmaster carry the conversation.

"Professor Sycamore," Ozpin continued, shifting his eyes to the woman next to him and waving towards Ruby. "This is miss Rose. She's a… late addition to the coming academic year."

"It's nice to meet you, miss Rose. I look forward to teaching you."

Not giving Ruby a chance to respond, she gives Ozpin a slight nod and walks past Ruby to the elevator, gracefully sliding into the car and going back down to the bottom of the tower.

Ruby refocuses on Ozpin, the curiosity and question shining in her eyes, almost pleading for an answer. "Professor…?" she hesitantly starts, the confusion annoyingly clear in her voice. "What… what's going on?"

"I'm sure you've seen the state of the courtyard, looking and feeling several months too early from what you remember and without any of the rain from the previous day." His grin remains on his face as he leans forward, elbows coming to rest on his desk and his fingers intertwining with each other. "And you're aware that miss Goodwitch is not currently my right-hand woman, at the moment it is a woman whose name was lost to your generation after the rise of teams like Team STRQ and Hunters like James Ironwood."

Ruby's eyes narrow further, Ozpin's words rattling through her brain. "So, I'm actually…"

"Miss Rose," Ozpin interrupts her, his grin turning somewhat sly, "do you know what time is?"

She groans the instant he finishes his question, the urge to bash her head against a wall suddenly filling her. She _did_ , _she_ _ **did**_ activate her Semblance when the Dust machine blew last night—she hadn't meant to, but after a decade of learning and trying to master her Semblance it was obviously second nature when it came to dodging out of harm's way.

But… wait…

"How do _you_ know, professor Ozpin?"

His smile turns from the sly grin to his normal kind, if secretive, smile. "What you must understand, miss Rose, is that I asked you that question already knowing the answer." At her confused—again—look, he continues. "You see, miss Rose, I was born with an… incredibly unique Semblance. My very existence, since I unlocked my Aura many years ago, was scattered across time—effectively making me immortal and eternal. But as a result, my consciousness has experienced and is experiencing every single timeline so long as I was able to perceive it—and that includes giving you, a prodigal genius in physics the likes of which hasn't been seen in almost five hundred years, the idea and drive to decode what time is on a level no one has done before—at least, without the benefit of having a time based Semblance."

He pauses momentarily, glancing into Ruby's eyes. "Are you following along so far?" At her slightly shaky nod, Ozpin continues. "When I gave you the idea, I did it knowing you'd succeed and that, because of a simple and easy mistake, you'd find your way… here, twenty-three years in the past, in the same year that team STRQ begins attending Becon."

The office stands silent for almost five minutes, Ruby's mind preoccupied with countless questions. ' _He knew I'd mess up and go back in time? He planned on it happening? Ozpin's consciousness is scattered across time? What does that mean for him—what does that mean for_ me _?_ '

"What… what should I do, professor Ozpin?"

He looks at her for a moment, pity and regret filling his gaze. "Let things happen as they do, miss Rose," he responds, taking a sip of his coffee. "But I must warn you—time does not like being defied and being denied. If there is something that _needs_ to happen, it will make sure you confide and make sure it happens. You'll know when that happens, trust me."

Ruby nods, and watches when Ozpin pushes a couple sheets with a scroll lying on top next to a credit card. "These are the papers with your new identity, confirming your existence, as well as your scroll and a card connected to a bank account with money for you to buy a new wardrobe and the parts for a weapon."

"You have five days before orientation day, miss Rose. I recommend you work on designing yourself a new weapon, something other than a scythe if I could give a suggestion. Make sure you have it done by initiation. Any questions?"

Ruby shakes her head, walking up to the desk and grabbing the objects.

Her hand stops when she catches site of the name.

She can practically hear the morbid humour in Ozpin's voice.

"Welcome to Beacon, miss Summer Rose."

* * *

 **AN: I'll be doing my best to minimise the amount of author notes I have in chapters _—_ I'll be using them to either answer questions or say a few things. Quite honestly I don't know how frequently I'll be updating this story, anyone that looks at my profile can see that I can pretty randomly lose interest in writing a story and I want to pace myself with this specific one to try and maintain my interest and desire to write it.**

 **If I have time before getting to Ruby/Summer designing her weapons in the next chapter or the chapter after, I'd greatly appreciate weapon ideas. Something fitting agile, hit and run combat and fitting a svelte build. I want the range aspect of the weapon to be a bow and arrow, but I have no idea what I want for the close ranged combat aspect.**


	3. Chapter 2

Ruby spends the elevator ride down from Ozpin's office in stunned, horrified silence. Initially she'd planned to get information out of the man once she'd regained her bearings, but had been requested to leave as he "had preparations to make" and she "should get started on her weapon".

' _Secretive old wizard._ '

Though despite her silence and confusion, her thoughts have been surprisingly single-minded. Focussed on one, solitary sentence. _"Welcome to Beacon, miss Summer Rose."_ The sentence plagues her mind, rolling through her head as she makes her way from Ozpin's office towards the guest dorms, a poisonous cascade that Ruby just _can't_ figure out.

' _Was he wrong? Was_ I _wrong? Does he think I'm mom, not me? Did he ask mom the same question? Was she a physics prodigy like I am?_ ' It certainly made sense if he thought as much, in Ruby's mind. At seventeen she looked, according to her dad and uncle Qrow, like the mirror image of Summer Rose—it was part of the reason her dad gave her Summer's cloak.

But… ' _Νο_ _that can't be, he specifically mentioned not to use a scythe, which means he knows I did before I came back in time…_ '

' _But... maybe mom did too—maybe the reason dad and Qrow told me mom didn't use a scythe, though looked like a natural whenever she used Qrow's, was because she came back in time and Ozpin told her not to use it?_ '

Ruby sighs softly, glancing up from her feet underneath her cloak for the first time in almost ten minutes—thankful for the lack of students at the school at the time. Ruby gives a soft snort at the thought—despite Blake's best efforts, while Ruby was certainly significantly more graceful and had faster reaction timings than she had at fifteen, she was still a "clumsy oaf", as Weiss put it, when distracted.

She stopped suddenly, a thought coming to her mind. If Summer Rose also came back in time, around the same time Ruby did—will she run into her mom? What sort of paradox would that cause, or really… just straight up confusion for the woman.

On that note what will Ozpin say, or what will his reaction be? His consciousness might be scattered across time, allegedly, but she knows that the man was still frequently surprised by events that Ruby feels he should've known about.

He certainly looked astonished when she'd discovered the virus that the woman at the CCTS tower infected Beacon's systems with in the second semester of her first year.

Ruby doesn't even realise she'd reached the dorms until she hears an annoyed grunt as she, quite literally, runs into someone's back. Looking up through her cloak, Ruby stills a little—' _Professor Goodwitch…_ '

She'd been hoping for a bit more time before running into her—former—combat teacher again.

' _And maybe not_ literally _run into her._ '

Glynda turns her body and head slightly to stare at the slightly smaller woman, her eyes fixed into the glare that looks so at home on the seventeen year-old woman's face that Ruby can't really be surprised that she was basically always glaring in her time.

"You know," Glynda drawls out, her voice as characterisingly authoritative as Ruby's used to, "we really do need to stop meeting each other like this." If possible, her eyes narrow further. "Not only were you incredibly impolite by running away without even a proper "goodbye", but you quite specifically _ran into me_."

"Uh—Guh—Buh…" Ruby stutters, much like when she'd seen the woman earlier. The confused stutter seemed to make Glynda lose all sense of seriousness on her face—her mouth tilts into a teasing grin that just _did not_ look right on the woman's face and a giggle slips past her lips.

If Ruby's being honest, giggles sound weird coming from her.

"And what is _that_ supposed to mean!"

' _Oh crud, I didn't mean to say that out loud!_ '

Ruby quickly raises her hands in surrender, her head shaking violently as she tries to placate the woman. "I didn't mean that in a bad way!" she apologises, her voice much higher and squeakier than she'd intended. "I—I…" she stutters, her voice dropping back to the tone she'd grown used to as she aged. "I just meant… you look like you're super serious and I just… never expect giggles like that from that kind of person…" Even to her the excuse sounds lame and heavily like a lie.

"Oh, that makes sense… I guess."

Ruby glances up at Glynda in minor shock. She actually accepted that? ' _That was such a terrible lie!_ '

Glynda shrugs, her lips still in that darn grin. "Tai, a… _friend_ of mine, has told me the same thing before," she explains.

…' _Tai? Dad?_ '

"Oh, uh…" Ruby gets out, her confused and flustered mind still finding itself incapable of forming more complex sentences. ' _Were professor Goodwitch and dad friends? Did he ever mention her whenever he told Yang and I about his time in Beacon?_ ' For the life of her Ruby can't remember—she'd always paid close attention whenever her dad talked about his days in Team STRQ and their time in Beacon, and she knew that he was good friends with professors Port and Oobleck, but she can't seem to recall him mentioning professor Goodwitch. ' _Maybe they weren't actually very close friends? They could have… possibly been in different years? And just knew each other from Signal?_ '

It _did_ make sense to Ruby that, if professor Ozpin had actually been expecting her mom— _Summer_ —instead of _her_ to travel back in time, that professor Goodwitch and her dad would've been in different academic years.

Glynda's posture seems to relax and the teasing grin fades into a much more kind one. "So, you never actually answered my question earlier." At Ruby's confused stare, she rolls her eyes. " _Are you okay_? You look like a stuttering and blushing mess, and if you need to go see one of the medics, it really shouldn't be an issue. Students shouldn't actually be arriving for a few more days, so the medics in the medical wing should be free to take a look at you."

Ruby furiously shakes her head and tries to collect her thoughts, keep herself from sounding too panicked. "N… No I'm alright, actually I uh…" she trails off, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. "I'd… actually just left the medical wing when we first bumped into each other, gravity Dust accident."

Glynda tilts a brow but decides to let her next question go. "So, you a new, homeless student like me or a returning student that had to come early?" she asks instead, and Ruby mentally curses herself. She'd forgotten all about Beacon's hosting free room for the time between a student's graduation from an entry combat school and their initiation at Beacon.

"Uh, yeah… the former."

"Oh! What primary school did you go to? Ι imagine I'd remember you from Signal and you certainly look Valean…"

"Uh... well…" Her response comes slow, trying to rack her brain for whatever info about her mom's pre-Beacon life she'd been told. Taiyang and Qrow didn't tell her or Yang about it a lot—their dad was the most open about his pre-Beacon life. But she _does_ remember… "My parents and aunt are nomads, I uh… actually grew up outside the Kingdoms—I never went to a combat school."

She giggles softly at Glynda's shocked expression. ' _To be fair,_ ' Ruby thinks with a small grin, ' _it's not very often you meet someone from outside the Kingdoms attending a secondary combat school._ '

"Well…" Ruby hums, trying to shift her attention from Glynda. "I need to get to my room, so talk to you later G—"

"Oh Heavens me!" Glynda suddenly shouts, personal horror tinting her voice. "I never introduced myself! Oh I'm so sorry!"

She curtsies slightly, her head bowed. "My name is Glynda Goodwitch, upcoming first year at Beacon Academy. It's been nice meeting you, miss…?"

"Ru—" Ruby has to stop herself, blushing beneath her cloak when realising how awkward it'd be for her mom when she finally showed up if this woman thought her name was something it wasn't. She bows her head slightly and finally answers. "Summer Rose, pleased to meet you Glynda."

* * *

Ruby hums softly as she walks down the halls of the guest dorms, mentally counting them as she heads towards hers—' _124, coincidentally the same room Em and her team stayed in for the Vytal Festival._ '

She'd been truly grateful for the distraction Glynda had given her earlier—prior to running into the woman she'd walked for almost twenty minutes completely absentmindedly, her thoughts too focussed on the whole… 'Summer' issue. But thanks to Glynda, Ruby had needed to actually focus on something long enough for her to subconsciously remember Ozpin's words on how 'Time will make sure what needs to happen, happens'.

And really, now that she wasn't worrying too much on the 'Summer' issue, Ruby found herself smiling while opening her door and walking into her guest room. She gets to plan and forge a new weapon! It won't be Crescent Rose, sure—but Qrow had gotten her to learn how to use a scythe because physical combat wise it was similar in essence to what he remembered her mom's style to be. Medium range with quick close-range strikes before jumping back to act as ranged support.

If she's being honest, the only reason she'd even designed a _sniper_ scythe was because of that last bit of information. She never knew what her mom's weapons were, Qrow and her dad never talked about 'em, but Ruby just… _knew_ she could design something absolutely devastating using what Qrow had told her and what she herself knew.

And so, after sliding off her boots and hanging her cloak on the coat hook next to the door, Ruby slides into the chair at the desk and pulls a notebook and pencil that were… ' _coincidentally_ ' in her drawers to start her planning.

" _Summer was always quick_ " Ruby idly remembers Qrow mentioning to her one day after he'd accepted her as an apprentice. " _Speed semblance like yours, I think it actually might be hereditary, she said her mom had a speed semblance too._ "

' _So something that would benefit from speed… short sword, maybe?_ '

" _Scythe, huh? Well, it shouldn't be too surprising—Sum and I were the mid-range fighters of the team, though where I preferred to get in close when I needed to her close range combat was pretty hit and run._ "

' _So not short swords_ ' she concedes, grimacing slightly. ' _Mid-range combat focus that allows for single strike close-range attacks… Bo-staff?_ '

" _Sum was a demon when she was fighting Grimm_ " the memory of her dad mentioning rushes to her head. " _She'd cleave her way through hoards within seconds, it was actually kind of terrifying!_ "

'" _Cleave" he said… so, still a blade… hmm…_ '

Ruby sighs and glances down at the paper on her desk and stills, her eyes widening slightly. She'd not noticed that she had been doodling with her right hand, her Aura leaving marks in the paper.

Kusarigama.

' _Are they… are they far enough away from being a scythe?_ ' she ponders, glancing at the notes she'd written on the other side of the paper. ' _A pair of swords that could connect to become a staff could work well en—_ '

Her right hand flew to her forehead and gripped it tightly as a sharp, sudden pain spiked through her being.

And as sudden as the pain came, it disappeared, leaving Ruby's vision a little blurry.

' _Could that… could that have been what Ozpin meant?_ ' she wonders, looking at her hand in confusion and back to the sheet of paper. But…

' _What could I have been planning that would mess with time? I was just thinking of how to make these kusarigama…_ ' Ruby shrugs slightly, sighing and grabbing a couple other sheets of paper from her desk—schematic sheets.

' _Guess I should work on these plans… Only a week until initiation, and I'd really like to be at least familiar with the weapons in case mom doesn't show up until after initiation._ '


End file.
